A dead humpback whale, who was known by the name Wally, has been repeatedly washing up on beaches in southern California this entire month.
Despite multiple consequent attempts to tow Wally back in the sea, for her to decompose naturally, her decomposing carcass keeps finding its way back to the shore.
After the fifth and the final time of the incidence, the frustrated authorities have finally started cutting up her body, to send the pieces to landfill.
The assistant stranding coordinator for California with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Justin Greenman told the press “This is kind of a crazy situation in that it keeps coming back.”
On June 30th, people who had gathered to commence celebrations for the 4th of July (American Independence day) weekend, spotted the giant dead body washed up on the shore of the Dockwailer State Beach in Los Angeles.
The ideal way may have been to let the body decompose naturally there itself, but given the “awful smell”, the carcass exuded, while the biggest holiday celebrations made for a highly unbefitting situation.
Hence, NOAA decided to tow her out to sea to decompose in the ocean, while becoming potential food for other marine animals at the same time.
According to calculations, counting in the weight of the whale and the flow of currents and winds, it was deduced that Wally had to be towed around 48 Km. But due to unavailability for a large enough vessel, with the required fuel capacity, the journey was halved and she was taken up to a distance of 24 Km (equivalent to 5 hours), and it was hoped that this would be a final goodbye.
But to everyone’s disappointment, dead Wally had managed to float back, this time to the shore of the beach at San Pedro.
This time again, the lifeguards towed her to the sea, soon after which she was washed up on the Newport Beach, where again the lifeguards spent out an entire day towing Wally, but then she was brought back again by the southerly wind.
You can see the lifeguards towing the large whale in the footage below:
After being towed from the Newport beach, Wally was spotted at Dana Point, where her massive body was intercepted, after which it came to the San Clemente State Beach, and then finally it washed up on the Grandview Beach in Encinitas.
There were even efforts to put her body back in the water using a bulldozer, but the attempt failed, leaving two flat tyres on the vehicle.
Thus, after the unending recurrence of the same event again and again, with repeated failed efforts, with the National Marine Fisheries permission, NOAA finally decided to cut up Wally’s body, to be delivered to a landfill in San Diego.
Before turning into a floating dead-mass, Wally was actually quite popular around the Newport Beach when alive. This was after an aerially shot footage of the whale was released, where she can be seen blowing beautiful rainbow coloured water spray from her blow hole.
Here is the mesmerising video: